Ordained Servant Online

A Journal for Church Officers

E-ISSN 1931-7115

Foreign Missions

November 2011

From the Editor. It has been my joy, over three decades of ministry in the OPC, to observe the way our home and foreign missions committees guide the work of spreading the gospel through building the church. In the face of an overwhelming tendency in the American church toward pragmatism, we have sought to be biblicalPresbyterian and Reformedin our approach, focusing, as such an approach demands, on missions as the supernatural work of God.

I have asked each of the general secretaries of our three program committees to articulate the biblical uniqueness of their approach to the three essential ministries. In this issue we conclude this series with foreign missions. Mark Bube explains the principles of OPC foreign missions in an article to be published online soon.

I have added some thoughts on the missionary lessons I learned as a home missionary from the remarkable autobiography of John Paton, Scottish foreign missionary to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). I recommend that all officers read this along with the much briefer, but monumental, account of missionary principles by John Nevius, The Planting and Development of Missionary Churches.

The two book reviews this month have nothing directly to do with foreign missions, except that Darryl Hart's history Between the Times, reviewed by Donald Duff, devotes an entire chapter (99–119) to the subject covering 1945–90. It is a special treat to have someone who lived and ministered throughout the period covered in the book review it for us.

The second review is of two books having to do with an area of particular interest to me, having been raised in a home surrounded by Japanese art and artifacts. Makoto Fujimura's River Grace and Refractions are a compelling account of this artist's harmonization of faith, art, and culture in his life in Manhattan. He was World magazine Daniel of the Year in 2005 and stands in a long tradition of superb writers among fine artists.

Finally, the art of sacred poetry is most beautifully displayed this month with Gerard Manley Hopkins's tribute to the original Communicator, "Pied Beauty."

Ordained Servant exists to help encourage, inform, and equip church officers for faithful, effective, and God glorifying ministry in the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its primary audience is ministers, elders, and deacons of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, as well as interested officers from other Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Through high quality editorials, articles, and book reviews we endeavor to stimulate clear thinking and the consistent practice of historic, confessional Presbyterianism.